GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1996 U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. in room SD366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Frank H. Murkowski, chairman, presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. I want to welcome you all. The focus of the hearing today is U.S. climate change policy. And while exploring this topic, we will delve into a little of the economics and science along the way. I have often been fascinated with the experimentation done in the ice cores taken from the Greenland icecap-many of you are aware of that-because it really gives us a history of the Earth's climate and the realization that in these cores we can scientifically tell the extremes associated with the activity from volcanoes and others things that have affected our climate the glacier advance, the retreat in sea levels, the changing shoreline, hurricane spin, blizzards, and so forth. And that evidently appears to have been the case for eons. Assigning human causes to these natural events, the way that some of our weekly news magazines, Time and Newsweek, do after virtually every major storm perhaps is to overstate humanity's influence on Earth at any given time. Regardless of what we say or do, dynamic forces will continue to reshape our planet. Having said that, I think we can all agree that we should seek to curtail human activities that can really be shown to result in dangerous, significant and adverse climate changes. And that is the goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climatic Change that the Senate ratified back in 1992. But, to a large degree, the scientific jury is still out over the question of whether or not varied human activities will result in dangerous, significant and adverse climate changes. There is an organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, which I will refer to, which recently released its first new report in 5 years. And this report contains the following statement: "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate." Now some point to this statement as proof of scientific consensus that justifies quick, extreme and even urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, we have Under Secretary Tim Wirth here who, at the recent Climate Change Treaty "Conference of the Parties" in Geneva, said, and I quote and I am sure Tim will address it today: science calls upon us to take urgent action. This view appears to be somewhat at odds with the findings of a recent scientific review by the George C. Marshall Institute, concluding that predictions of human-induced global warming have been greatly exaggerated, and that the human contribution to global warming over the course of the 21st century will be less than 1 degree Celsius and probably only a few tenths of a degree. Well, even the IPCC report, before it was edited after what appears to be some pressure from policymakers, contained the following statement: "None of the studies cited above have shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases. No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climatic change observed to date to manmade causes. Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced." Well, when you read these statements, it is tough to make the case that dangerous climate change is at hand or that manmade greenhouse gases are the cause. But, nevertheless, we have the obligation to certainly err on the side of being conservative. Moreover, it is interesting to note that the IPCC itself has reduced its estimate of anticipated global warming with apparently each new report that it has come out with. So in the face of this scientific uncertainty, the question before the committee and the American people is: Is urgent action needed, as suggested by Under Secretary Wirth? Do we need emission caps, carbon taxes, Btu taxes or other new mandatory mechanisms to limit our emissions? As we saw earlier, the first time the administration proposed a Btu tax, Congress rejected it. Is the administration, trying to achieve, through the United Nations, something it failed to achieve before Congress? We will have an opportunity to pursue that in this hearing. We will hear more about science during this hearing. So let me turn very briefly to policy and economics. In 1992, the Senate ratified a treaty calling for non-binding aims, goals and voluntary measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But during international meetings in Berlin and Geneva, State Department negotiators took a different tack. In Berlin, we agreed that there would be new greenhouse gas emission limits that would apply to the United States and other industrialized nations, but that the new limits would not apply to developing nations, such as China, India and South Korea. I am told there is some misinterpretation of that, and we will be enlightened on that this morning. In Geneva, we agreed that new limits would be mandatory and legally binding, as is my understanding. The question is: Does this mean that some of our toughest trade competitors will get to sit at the negotiating table and set the greenhouse gas emission limits that apply to us but not to them? Well, we will have an opportunity to discuss that this morning. And if we do not meet our targets, could China, as an example, presumably haul the United States up before the World Court, even as their greenhouse gas emission meet and surpass ours into the next century? Well, clearly, in Geneva and Berlin, State Department negotiators have articulated a dramatic shift in U.S. policy with anticipated profound impacts on the Nation's energy policy. United Nations-imposed legally binding emission reductions could very well require the United States to adopt carbon taxes, new CAFE standards or other command and control measures, with impacts on our economy at home and our competitiveness abroad. It concerns me that this treaty has provided a framework for energy policy to be shaped initially by the State Department negotiators during the United Nations meetings in Berlin and Gene va. Americans who will be affected by these negotiations, Americans whose jobs may be lost and their wallets may be depleted and whose life styles may be changed do not often travel to Geneva or Berlin to watch these U.N. negotiations and understand necessarily what is going on there. So we hope this hearing will provide everyone with a better understanding of what is behind this change of policy. We also hope to shed some light on some of the following questions: Has the administration concluded the rigorous analysis needed to understand the competitive and economic implications of this new policy? We also hope to shed some light on other questions: Has science reached a consensus that dangerous climate change will result from human influences? What are the areas of greatest scientific uncertainty? How well is the process used by the Convention on Climate Change to inform and guide policymakers about the science of climate change working? Is science shaping policy or are policymakers trying to shape science? What are the economic implications of the administration's approach? What will be the impacts on U.S. jobs, economic growth and the balance of payments? And are there economic advantages in waiting to achieve greenhouse reductions later rather than sooner? Are there economic and environmental advantages in focusing on reductions in the developing world rather than the developed world? Well, these are all questions that I hope we can touch on this morning, and we look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. [The prepared statements of Senators Akaka and Ford follow:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL K. AKAKA, U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII I want to thank Chairman Murkowski for holding a hearing on this important topic. Global climate change is the most complex environmental and economic problem confronting humanity. The problem calls for actions now if we are to avoid future climatological disturbances that would wreak havoc on our planet. The potential changes in climate could cause profound disturbances for agriculture, water resources, coastal communities, and human health. It goes without saying that the impact on many nations, including ours, would be enormous. As a Senator from an island state, I am concerned about the potential risks of sea level rise. Coastal areas of our country, and around the world, are heavily populated. These areas may be at significant risk. Mr. Chairman, the scientific evidence to date suggests that anthropogenic activities are having a measurable effect on our planet's climate. One may argue about the scientific and technical details and specific numbers, but the overall conclusion is indisputable. I applaud President Clinton's efforts in this area. He has urged all Americans and all the nations of the world to prepare their economies for the twenty-first century in an environmentally responsible manner. I also applaud President Clinton's efforts to involve the private sector as a key partner in addressing this problem. The creativity and the genius of the private sector are necessary to develop solutions to our long-term environmental problems, especially the problems associated with global climate. I am pleased that we are not only participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change but also playing a leadership role, thanks to the efforts of Under Secretary Wirth. PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. WENDELL H. FORD, U.S. SENATOR FROM KENTUCKY Mr. Chairman, I am glad you have scheduled today's hearing on Global Climate Change. This is a topic which is right below the radar screen today-but which has important and far reaching consequences for tomorrow. The international negotiations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change are a high priority for this Administration, and should receive the close scrutiny of this committee. I am especially concerned with the potential implications of any international negotiations for the coal industry in my state. I am concerned about the potential for having two international standards-one for developed countries and one for developing countries. I share the concerns of others on this committee about the scientific basis for negotiating any new standards. I am concerned about the potential longterm impacts for both domestic energy production and our competitiveness overseas. So there are many questions in my mind about where we are headed. Obviously, I think we will find that this Administration wants to balance economic and environmental considerations very carefully. I plan to listen closely today and over the next several months to the many affected parties in my state as these Climate Treaty negotiations proceed. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Johnston. STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, U.S. SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA Senator JOHNSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this may well be my last hearing on any energyrelated topic, and I think it is appropriate that it be on global climate change, one of the most interesting issues to come before us. When I was chairman of this committee, we held the first hearings on it. And most of the hearings on global climate change have been held before this committee, a fact of which I am proud. Global climate change is an issue that illustrates, in microcosm, all the difficulties of integrating sound science into public policy, a struggle which has been at the centerpiece of my Senate career. As an institution, Congress faces enormous challenges in connecting science and public policy. Scientific research is often not conclusive. There is always one more experiment to be done, one more hypothesis to be examined. On most any issue, one can find a decent number of intelligent contrarians in the scientific community. This makes for stimulating and fruitful debate among scientists, and it often gets all aspects of a policy examined. But it confuses the political world, which looks to scientists for clear and simple answers. As one member of Congress supposedly said, "I am tired of hearing scientists tell me on the one hand this, on the one hand that, cannot we get a onehanded scientist?" In contrast to much of science, public policy is often made in a pressure cooker situation, where emotions run high. To achieve political progress, proponents of a cause often feel they must exaggerate the consequences of inaction in order to galvanize their allies and to overcome institutional inertia. There is not an easy fit between these forces and motivations. And the global warming debate has been marked by excesses both from the environmental movement and from the industry. Some environmentalists claim that recent extreme weather phenomenon, be they hurricanes or blizzards, are signs of human-induced global warming. This is junk science. It takes the existing research far beyond where it can properly go. The recent IPCC report, to its credit, repeatedly refuses to make any such connections. With respect to any connection between global warming and severe storms, the IPCC says this: "Knowledge is currently insufficient to say whether there will be any changes in the occurrence or geographical distribution of severe storms, that is, tropical cyclones, as a result of warmer climates." You cannot get any clearer than that from scientists. Some environmentalists also have a peculiar blind spot when it comes to technologies that could help prevent global warming. Nuclear power and hydropower never seem to appear on the list of technologies to consider. We are worried, of course, about future emissions of greenhouse gases from China as it modernizes and grows. China alone will install, over the next few decades, central electric power generation capacity at a rate 10 times greater than that which is expected in the United States. Development of hydropower in the Yangtze Valley and the use of safe forms of nuclear power should be high on the world's wish list for China. Yet many in the environmental movement oppose efforts to open the Chinese markets to modern-and I might say safe-U.S. nuclear powerplants, as well as U.S. participation in projects such as the Three Gorges Dam. Such projects are not without environmental cost. But are not the costs potentially less than the alternative? If environmentalists want to have credibility on global warming with politicians representing the broad center in this country, then they need to advocate a balanced portfolio of energy supply options, including nuclear and hydropower, and not simply treat global warming as another talking point for a preexisting agenda. On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, some in industry are now trying to obfuscate the basic facts about global climate change. Their target is the latest IPCC report, and the strategy seems to be to impune the integrity of the scientists involved in writing it. This, I believe, is a disgrace. There is no credible evidence that the IPCC report has been subjected to, quote, "scientific cleansing," as has been charged. There is not a shred of evidence of misconduct by any scientist involved in writing this report. This sort of smoke screen is unfortunately all too common in Washington. If you are losing on substance, attack on process. If you are losing there, too, then start attacking personally. |